"No. Why do you care anyway?" there's an undertone of hostility in her tone but Marisol figures that should've been expected. She shrugs again.
"Just curious." and without waiting for an answer, she walked away from the conversation, heading straight to the library. Now she was more certain that her dream might have been an actual sleepwalk.
She could sense the fear in Lily and the lies almost oozing from Sophia's pores. They were hiding something and whatever they were hiding was in that part of the house that hadn't been renovated.
Since they were all hellbent on keeping their secret buried, Marisol grows all the more determined to unearth whatever it was. The library welcomes her with the subtle scent of aged paper and the soft creaking of wooden shelves.
Marisol had fallen in love with it from the moment Lily had shown it to her. She'd spent some time there the first time, but only now did she take the time to really admire it.
It was a vast space filled with towering bookshelves, each crammed with volumes that held the secrets and history of the pack. The polished mahogany tables and plush armchairs provided a cozy atmosphere that invited deep contemplation.
Driven by relentless curiosity, Marisol makes a beeline for the history section. She needed answers, and this seemed like the place where she might find them.
The first order of business was to acquire the layout and maps of the packhouse. She unearthed blueprints detailing the intricate structure, studying each level and room meticulously. The map now lay sprawled across the table, revealing hidden passages and connecting corridors, feeding her insatiable curiosity about the mysterious corners of Redwood.
Next, she delves into historical writings, her nimble fingers dancing over the spines of weathered tomes that chronicled the pack's legacy. Yellowed pages carried stories of triumphs and trials, and old maps depicted the evolution and impressive growth of the territory over the years. Marisol marvels at the rich history woven into the fabric of Redwood, a history that remained elusive to her until now.
Placing the maps and historical records strategically, she disguises her intent by picking up a random book. The decoy becoming her shield, obscures her true pursuits as she immerses herself further into what would be a major stepping stone to her understanding of her new prison.
She begins to study and compare the new pack to the old, gasping as different pieces of information continue to unravel right before her eyes. She finds Caleb and his mate to be much more deceptive than she had thought.
In contrast to his words, Redwood had never been attacked by rogues. Instead, they'd been having issues with the witches at their border. She sees something about an Ember Coven that had wanted to drive the Pack out for centuries. She could tell that there was more to this, but then, the history books seemed just as evasive about it as the people of Redwood.
Another shocking discovery, Caleb was never mentioned as the original Alpha of Redwood. After his parents were brutally killed in an attack, his older brother was supposed to take over, but that looked to be the end of any information on said brother in all the history books. There was also no mention of a prophecy of any kind. In fact, Redwood hated witches more than any werewolf kin in the entire universe, prophecies came from witches, so how could this have happened?
It seemed like whatever was happening in Redwood was a result of a supernatural manipulation, but it still didn't explain why they'd ensnared her. It was at that moment that another realization dawned on her, the fact that there was infact, a force field, keeping her within the boundaries of Redwood. That had to have been made by a witch too, which would mean that Caleb and his mate, were indeed, working with a witch. It also explained why he'd made the workers in the packhouse swear an oath and kept it away from the rest of the pack.
Yet, the revelation only works to deepen her concern, making her wonder what exactly her part would be in all this. Because after the affliction Redwood had suffered at the hands of the Coven, she didn't think it could happen that Caleb would willingly let a witch manipulate the borders of his pack. The things they were hiding only looked to grow more complex and dangerous the more she looked and that unnerved Marisol.
She begins to study the building plans to figure out how to get back to that place she had seen in her dreams, which felt more like she'd sleepwalked. Just then, she stumbles on a blueprint on the far side of the plans, tucked away, almost torn from having been folded and disregarded for almost as long as the building plans existed. This was a tunnel...... a secret tunnel that led out of Redwood.
She gasped loudly, throwing a hand over her lips to muffle the sound. That was it! That was her way out! She'd finally found her way back home. Elated, she begins to compare her new discovery to the older maps.
The newer maps did not have that tunnel but the older ones did. It seemed as if the new plans and maps erased a lot of things about Redwood.
Now she just needs to... her train of thought is disrupted by the sound of footsteps.
'Caleb!' She thinks and swiftly employs the decoy book to veil the maps and plans scattered across the table. The subtle shuffling of papers and the nonchalant posture she assumes create the illusion of a casual reader engrossed in a novel.